


Working It Out

by atigerlilyangel, ecaracap



Series: The 100/Maze Runner Crossover [5]
Category: The 100 (TV), The Maze Runner (2014), The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-05
Updated: 2014-10-05
Packaged: 2018-02-19 22:31:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2405294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atigerlilyangel/pseuds/atigerlilyangel, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ecaracap/pseuds/ecaracap
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke and Thomas strike up an agreement. But Bellamy needs to agree to it first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Working It Out

“Clarke!” Octavia calls out to the other girl, jogging over to her. She had gone to check on Minho and the others again that day. It had been hard to wait to be asked again because she wanted to see him again, to see if he was okay. But really, she wanted to see this list they were creating.

A list that she now had, that clearly made enough of them an asset to her own people that she would be able to argue on their behalf. “Can I talk to you for a second? About our…” she hated the idea of calling them prisoners, even if that was what they were, “visitors?”

Clarke pauses, sighing ever so softly - Octavia has been more than a little obsessed with their new guests since they got here. She’s noticed it was making Bellamy nervous and that in itself made her nervous as well. “Sure,” she says, willing to listen to her at least, “What about them?”

She’s glad that Clarke doesn’t immediately shut her down, but she also notices that Clarke seems hesitant. She’s worried the blonde might not really hear her and take her seriously.

“We’re gearing up for war. And compared to Grounders and Reapers and whatever else is out there, we are severely limited in numbers. We’re definitely out manned, maybe even out skilled. We’re not as good with guns as they are with simple bows and arrows. Extra people on our side might help and some of them have useful skills: the ability to fight, to help at the smokehouse, to fly and fix hovercrafts. I mean they could be useful and clearly if they wanted to hurt us, they could have by now. They’re more on our side than against us.”

Clarke nods in agreement with her - Octavia’s not wrong, they need help, though she’s not sure if she completely trusts these boys just yet. “We have kept them locked up for just that reason...to stop them from hurting us.” But she knows Octavia’s right about that too - if they wanted to truly attack them, they would have found a way by now.

She takes the paper from Octavia’s hand, looking it over. She reads it over, raising an eyebrow and looks at her questioningly, “Running? Seriously? They put running down as a useful skill?”

She shrugs, “Where they were before they had to run a long way and back in a day, looking for a way out. Maybe they’re really fast, have great endurance...that could help.” Though, she also knew she’d list anything as a useful skill to get out of the hatch.

She nods at that, shrugging in acceptance, “That is true. If they can run, they could scout out parts of the forest it would take us longer to get to...” 

“I know you and Bell think I’m too trusting...but I don’t think I’m wrong about this...about them being able to help. If they could just get out.”  
Clarke looks over the rest of the list, most of the boys putting down fighting as a skill, though the cooking and mechanical skills catch her eye as well. “They do have a lot of skills to offer. This one...Jorge, might be a big help to Raven. And maybe this cook would know how to find more food, make it last longer.”

She sighs, running a hand over her face, thinking. “They could be an asset, you’re right. But I’m not sure we can entirely trust them just yet. I would be willing to negotiate letting them out, but not giving them free range of the weapons. We can’t do anything unless Bellamy is on board too, you know.”

“I know,” Octavia said with a nod, “I figured you could talk to them first, then we could talk to Bellamy together. Unless you think I would hurt the cause.”

She shakes her head, “No...if anything, you help it. You know how Bellamy is so fond of doing anything for you. We’ll just both need to convince him. But I’ll go ahead and talk to them first.” 

Clarke takes the paper and heads up to the hatch to speak to the group. She wasn’t one hundred percent sure what to say now, as she looks around to see the entire group staring at her. She just had to hope that they answered this question, the most pertinent one, honestly. “Octavia gave me your list of skills. And I’m most curious about one thing: Why would you want to help us?”

Newt sits in the corner, arms crossed and he snorts disbelievingly. “Got all that from our list, did ya?” he says with a slight scowl.

Minho sits beside him and would usually have been the first to agree with him, but it was partly his idea...his and Octavia’s. “Dude,” he says simply, shaking his head.

“Just...ignore them,” Thomas says, getting up to speak with her. “They’re just a little crazy from being locked up here so long.”

She nods, she can understand being stir crazy, it’s been over a week since they were put up her, “I’m not taking it personally.”

Thomas gives her a small smile, “But, um...I guess mostly we just want to help you cause it’s a way out. Not that that’s the only reason.”

She was a little surprised, at his clearly genuine answer, “I understand wanting a way out that doesn’t involve hurting a lot of us. But that’s the problem...if we let you out, we need you to actually help us, not bolt for Mount Weather the first chance you get. We could use your help to stay alive. You’re better to us here.” Not to mention Bellamy would never even consider it without a guarantee of that.

He sighs deeply, running a hand through his hair, “Mount Weather was the plan for us, where we were told to go. We were told it’s a possibility we could be killed if we don’t get there...But it’s not like we know how to get there anyway.”

Clarke can’t say she’s not startled by the news that someone might go to the effort of killing them if they don’t go to Mount Weather, but she tries to take it in stride, “Well, maybe if you help keep us alive, we can show you the way. We were supposed to go there for supplies when we first got here. We could find out what is or isn’t up there together, which would up your chances of survival too.”

Thomas looks back to Minho, where he watches eagerly and he chuckles softly, “Minho’s tried to explain what’s been happening to you guys...something about Grounders trying to kill you?”

She nods, “We were told that Earth was not inhabitable that no one but us would be here when we landed. But there are clearly people here...one group nearby we call Grounders. They didn’t like our intrusion, they tried to kill Jasper, we retaliated, it escalated. They’re supposed to attack soon.” And that wasn’t even mentioning the Reapers that the Grounders said might be coming. “It is war,” she said to make that clear.

She sighs a little at how eager Minho looks; it was the same eager way that Octavia had looked at her just this morning.

“Seems like a fair trade,” he says with a decisive nod - he knows the more people they have, the safer they’ll be. Though, he imagines she’s thinking the same thing about her group.

Thomas takes a deep breath, taking all of her story in, “Sounds like it’s just a lot of hostility,” he says, thinking - it sounds like it’s a lot of bad blood, but a lot of things they aren’t really a part of. “I think if you help us, we would be willing to help you. Let us out of here, stay with your group and we’ll help you fight. But once that’s over, we go to Mount Weather and...see what’s there together,” he offers.

Clarke nods, “I think we can work something out. I’ll have to go talk to Bellamy. Though, if he’s not on board, then nothing will happen. I’ll go talk to him, come back and tell you what he says.” She gives him a small smile as she heads back out down the hatch, going off to find Bellamy.

Bellamy is with Raven, in her tent, listening to her new thoughts on how to weaponize this war, how to fight it. Anything can help and she has a brilliant mind.

His attention immediately moves to the tent opening as Clarke walks in. If it were anyone else, he’d probably look back down to the table, but it’s not anyone else - it’s Clarke, “What’s up?”

“Can I talk to you, please?” she says, nodding slightly back outside the tent, clearly wanting to go back out...not wanting to talk in front of Raven.

He gives her a confused look, as if to ask why they can’t talk now, “I’ll be back,” he says to Raven before moving out of the tent to join her. “Okay, so what was so important you had to drag me out here?”

“The captives want out,” she says simply, her arms crossed, knowing she has to be all business with him. “They can help us, help us fight the Grounders. And you know we need our numbers to be as big as we can.”

He crosses his own arms over his chest, taking up a taller stance, one of power, “Are you crazy? You want to let them out so that they can help us kill a bunch of people that they have no quarrel with?” he shakes his head, “No. Never going to happen.”

"They can help us," she says simply. "They have certain skills," she takes out the paper they wrote, handing it to him. "We can't keep them in there forever. They're using our resources and not contributing. If we let them out, they can help."

He takes the list from her, glancing it over, shaking his head as if this has to be a joke, “Running? Why don’t they just list walking and breathing?”

“You’re right, we can’t keep them in there forever,” he agrees, “But we can keep them in there until we’re done dealing with this and we can really focus on dealing with them. Why would they want to go to Mount Weather of all places? There’s more to them than just strangers wandering through the forest and we don’t have time to figure out what right now with the Grounder threat. I don’t buy for a second that we let them out and they help us.”

Bellamy hadn’t even known that his sister was listening in or even nearby until she piped up, “They will,” she says, avoiding using the word trust, but she did trust them. “They agreed to give me that list of skills to help us. They know that the only way they get out is if they help. And if they were trying to play some sort of game don’t you think they might list more impressive skills, like munitions expert or something? They didn’t. They were honest about what they can do, which makes me think they were honest about the rest of their intentions too. Besides, we give them food, we give them water...and we give them very precious medicine so that they can, what, sightsee from up there?”

Bellamy gestures around, “How do we keep them here? How do we keep them away from the weapons and bombs, from stealing all of our food? We don’t have the manpower to watch all of them all the time, which is what we would need to do. So, I’m sorry, but no. They stay right where they are.”

“We make a deal,” Clarke says, glad for Octavia’s help with her brother now. “They help us, we help them. They want to get to Mount Weather, right? They help us, we take them there. They don’t know how to get there anyway. We need each other. We were supposed to go there anyway, right? Now’s our chance to see what is up there, what’s so important.”

“We were only supposed to go to Mount Weather for supplies,” he pauses, because if any of those supplies were weapons, it might be worth it, “But we have food, we have water, we have supplies. What do you think they might have up there that we even need? We’re surviving. We don’t need to go to Mount Weather.”

Octavia swallows, “That’s just it Bellamy: we’re surviving. If there are weapons or bullets or even some form of food we could still use up there, we could maybe do more than just survive. Wouldn’t you want that? To stop living day to day, to have shelter, more food supplies, maybe some way to get rid of the Grounders, even if it was just in trading? We could actually build a community instead of being scared, huddled masses all the time. This place that you started, that you built, could grow.”

“Exactly,” she nods, uncrossing her arms, hoping a little emotion would convince him now. “We can build something more, something better. Maybe there are supplies that can help us do that. I know I’ve been curious about what’s up there since we got here. Aren’t you just the least bit curious?”

Bellamy is curious...but he also feels like protecting the people they had was the most important thing. Going out there had a lot of unknowns; they knew the dangers here. Maybe Octavia is right, maybe something better could come of this place, maybe life could get better.

He still feels that, first and foremost, he owed it to protect their people, “We have to find some way to lock up the weapons. They don’t need access to them until they prove themselves. We don’t need to give them away to kill us. They have to be on the same rations as everyone else. No extra.” he says, eyeing Octavia, knowing she took them extra food that he hadn’t said that she could, but she doesn’t even back down or like sheepish. It makes him grin a little, one of her most admirable qualities.

“They have to live by our rules, they have to pull their weight. They get lazy, break the rules, try to get access to weapons, they go right back up there to stay, no questions asked.”

Clarke nods firmly, already having told Thomas about the weapons, already assuming the rest for herself. “Done,” she says with a slightly proud smirk. “Some of them can help us with more than fighting. One of them is a cook, a couple of them know how to farm, know how to raise animals,” she says, pointing to the list, “And apparently one is pretty good with mechanics. Which is something we desperately need.”

“Well, then I guess we should go figure out who is who and give them assignments,” Bellamy says simply, trying to be all business and ignore the proud smirks on the both of these women’s faces.


End file.
